


Dana in Wonderland

by dashakay



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-22
Updated: 2009-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:36:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dashakay/pseuds/dashakay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scully is in the darkness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dana in Wonderland

Pretty is as pretty does. I don't know why I'm thinking this.

I wonder if I'm still pretty. And how long this has been going on.

Sometimes I hear crying. A woman's voice, high and harsh. Singing, once in a while. Many voices, babbling on and on. And mostly silence, out there in the velvety blackness.

Tired, that's what I am. I need rest. It's just like sleep, drifting off.

Some words make sense. Dana. Then I realize, that's my name. I am Dana.

There are scenes that stand out as clear as daylight. The Christmas carols we listened to in the car, all the way home. This is corny, I said, but I was laughing at the same time. _Away In A Manger_, sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir floated out of the radio and filled the car with those radiant voices, singing as one.

It doesn't really hurt, just the echo of pain, far away. I can smell it just around the corner, waiting for me.

Open your eyes, a voice says. Open those eyes of yours. Oh, Dana, please open your eyes.

The scent of chlorine bleach, smelling like summers at the pool, life guarding. My nose streaked with daubs of zinc cream, my limbs growing browner and browner as I stare at the rectangle of shimmering blue all day. Smells like drinking iced tea, of the slices of lemon floating on top of the glass.

It could be love.

It must be fate.

Dana, listen to me, open your eyes.

That's right, we were shopping. Presents at the mall. A paisley silk scarf for his mother. Fiestaware coffee mugs for Ellen. A suede purse for my mother. For the first time in ages we felt prosperous, even generous, armed with our Visa cards. Our first Christmas together. Really together. It is difficult to think of those gifts, now lying abandoned in the back seat. Perhaps scattered in the dirty snow, garish against all that white.

Is it Christmas yet? What time? What day? How long has this been going on?

I do know a few things. My name is Dana and I am thirty-four years old. Somehow those facts please me.

Pretty is as pretty does. I think about my face, trying to remember its features. The exact shade of my eyes, the curve of my ears. The small mole above my upper lip, I recall that, how I used to stare at the bathroom mirror for long minutes, wishing the mole gone. What is my face like now? It could just be gone, nothing there. No face at all. I don't know.

He tells me the mole is a beauty mark, that I have the glamour of a thirties-era movie star. I push him away, half mad, half pleased.

Floating in the bathtub, warm and comfortable, lulled by the steam. I am here and not here, above and below. I am in an in between place, waiting.

The taste of his skin after a run haunts me. The tang of his sweat. His hands running up my back. Pressing me down into the bed, his weight top me, my legs wrapping around his back. A perfect fit.

A cool hand surrounds my wrist. Skin like silk, so gentle.

A warmer hand, callused. I know that hand.

I dreamed about the beaches of Mexico a while ago. Nothing special or extraordinary just empty beaches stretching on into the horizon and dry air. I was wearing a white bikini, splashing around in the surf. Laughing at the way the wet sand squished between my toes. The sun in my hair, warming me, bronzing me.

Many dreams. I am traveling everywhere, through time, through space. One minute I am still in high school and I can't remember my locker combination and I'm late for a big Calculus final. The thing I know, next I am eating tuna salad at my mom's house, and then her kitchen becomes a café in Rome and I'm trying to order a cappuccino from the mustachioed barista who doesn't understand my halting Italian.

I want to open my eyes, but they are so heavy.

On the way home I sat next to him, feeling so close and warm. We had been fighting lately about little things, like expense reports. Christmas changed things, just like it is supposed to. For the first time we went to a lot and picked out a tree and strung it with tiny colored lights and popcorn. We hung stockings over the fireplace. Mistletoe hung in the archway leading into the living room and snowflakes were taped up on the windowpanes. You could say we got into the spirit of things.

Maybe I'm not here at all. I'm just imagining this.

Another question, where is here?

It would be so simple to let go. Stop thinking, quit dreaming. Let it all fade into twilight. Just stop.

The warm callused hand again. It nearly drives me mad with its familiarity.

The quiet is enough to reduce a person to tears. I strain for voices, for music, but there is nothing anymore. Just emptiness and silence. The darkness closes in, pressing on my face.

Dana I hear, and I think, that's me. I had forgotten.

We had the heat on high and I was sleepy. Outside, the air sparkled with crystalline flakes of snow. It is so unusual for it to snow here that we just had to laugh. Over the carols I whispered, I want to always remember this night. He smiled and I closed my eyes, drifting off to the pure soprano voices of the choir.

Yes, I remember it all now.

It should have ended differently, as beautifully as it started, where we go home and wrap the presents, drinking hot cocoa in the living room, listening to more Christmas music. Go to bed glad we don't have to get up early for work in the morning and make love slowly in the bluish light sneaking through the blinds. Fall asleep thinking of good things, of Christmas dinners and decorating the tree and snow falling.

That is not what happened.

Metal. Things smashing, things screeching. He is screaming. Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck Dana are you okay Scully are you okay oh fuck oh fuck oh Dana. A sliver of pain and then nothing. For a long time it is dark.

Pretty is as pretty does. Am I still pretty? Am I still me, am I still Dana? Or have I become something else in this place?

It occurs to me that perhaps I am the only person left in the world.

I don't like this anymore. It hurts, pain that is beyond description. My legs. My arms. My chest. A vise has clamped down on my skull and is squeezing tighter by the minute. Pain, pure pain.

I don't float. I feel solid and too heavy. Thirsty, I want water, get me a nice glass of water. I'd like an iced double skim latte, please. Diet Coke on ice, a margarita, no salt. I have never been so dry.

Leave me alone. I am being poked and prodded, always touched and turned. Just let me go back to sleep, unseen hands.

Dana, can you hear me? It's me, it's me.

Green tiles. That is what I see when my eyes open, through all the blinking. White walls, far too bright and harsh for my eyes. I close my eyes again, relishing the dimness.

A voice says, I'm not sure she actually saw anything. I want to scream, yes I did! I saw the wall!

Another thought. I am bored here, alone with my thoughts.

Christmas, is it over yet?

Dana, do it again. Open your eyes.

I want to see the snow falling.

I'm walking, my love. I'm walking back to you, out of the darkness.

The wall again, not as bright. It must be night. I am in a room, in a bed. Aha, I think. It smells like alcohol, like bodies and sheets. A whisper, right near my ear. Dana, are you awake? I blink a few times and the room is still here. Somehow I nod my head.

END


End file.
